DALLAS -- When first-year Dallas Stars coach Jim Montgomery called out his team over a "culture of mediocrity" in January, the St. Louis Blues weren't too far removed from having the worst record in the NHL.

Now the Central Division rivals will meet in the second round of the playoffs -- and Montgomery is ready to move on from his scathing critique, while declaring that the culture has changed.

"If you're in that locker room, you see the culture now," Montgomery after the Stars beat Nashville 2-1 in overtime in Game 6 on Monday to finish off the first-round series. "You see how much more professional we are. We work efficiently. We work effectively. And we work together.

"We're going to be eight of 31 teams left, right? We're doing something right. But we hope not to be done. But we know we're facing a really good team next, again."

The Blues went from having a league-worst 34 points on Jan. 2 to becoming the first team that was in the NHL cellar at the beginning of the calendar year to advance in the postseason.

Montgomery's blunt assessment came after a 3-1 loss to St. Louis when the Blues were beginning to dig out of their hole. The Dallas turnaround started a week later with the beginning of a five-game winning streak that bridged the All-Star break.

A year after collapsing late in the regular season with an eight-game losing streak that started with six straight losses on the road, the Stars picked up seven of eight possible points on a four-game Canadian swing late in the season to all but wrap up their first playoff berth in three years.

That most recent playoff trip in 2016 ended with a Game 7 loss in the second round to the Blues in Dallas.

"We had a lot of changes this year and a lot of uncomfortable conversations throughout the year," said Tyler Seguin, the high-scoring forward who was injured when the Blues and Stars met three years ago. "Guys came out of their comfort zones and that's made us a closer team, and that's why we're here tonight."

The last rookie coach to win his first playoff series was Dale Hunter with Washington seven years ago. And Montgomery is the second Stars coach to do it, following Dave Tippett in 2003.

An NCAA championship winner at the University of Denver two years ago, Montgomery is also the third coach in three seasons for the Stars. He followed Lindy Ruff and Ken Hitchcock, who returned to Dallas and missed the 2018 playoffs, 19 years after leading the franchise to its only Stanley Cup title.

"I think the journey through the year toughens you up, hopefully," Montgomery said. "And it definitely did for us. You have to face adversity to get better as a group, especially when it's your first time together. And we have. And the trust has grown."

Ben Bishop, a Vezina Trophy finalist who had a playoff career-high 47 saves to finish off the Predators, will be facing his hometown team, and the one that drafted him 14 years ago.

"I've been trying not to think about it, obviously trying to worry about this series," Bishop said. "It kind of gets a smile."

The Blues and Stars were the lower seeds in their first-round matchups. St. Louis beat Winnipeg, also in six games. If Vegas wins Game 7 at San Jose in the remaining first-round Western Conference series Tuesday night, all four lower seeds will have advanced.

"If you look around the league, I think everyone who gets into the playoffs has a really good chance to go win," said John Klingberg, who scored the clincher 17:02 into overtime. "You see a lot of top seed teams that are out right now."

A couple of weeks before Montgomery's frustration boiled over, Seguin and captain Jamie Benn were profanely ripped by CEO Jim Lites. The longtime team executive also used words such as "terrible" and "embarrassing" to describe the play of the high-priced forwards.

The concern for Lites, who said he was echoing the frustration of owner Tom Gaglardi, was that the Stars would end up in danger of missing the playoffs for the ninth time in 11 years. Instead, they wrapped up a series on home ice for the first time since 2008.

"We are very excited about this, and you can tell the crowd is too," Klingberg said. "We've been playing some good hockey here at the end. It's going to be a quick turnaround here. We all know how the Blues are playing, how good they are."

Neither team was saying that when the calendar turned to 2019.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Buffalo Sabres defenseman Zach Bogosian will miss five-to-six months after his second hip operation in a little more than a year.

The Sabres provided the update Tuesday, two weeks after their season ended. Bogosian missed the final eight games with a lower-body injury. The team says the recent operation repaired Bogosian's other hip.

The timetable for recovery means Bogosian could miss the start of next season.

The surgery is the latest setback for the 28-year-old, hard-hitting defenseman, who has played 70 games just twice in his 11 NHL seasons. Bogosian was limited to 18 games in 2017-18 before season-ending hip surgery in January of that season.

This season, he finished with three goals and 19 points in 65 games. That matched the most he played since 2011-12 while with Winnipeg.

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ORNSKOLDSVIK, Sweden -- Cole Caufield set the United States record for most goals scored in the IIHF Men's Under-18 World Championship Tuesday.

The highly-touted NHL draft prospect scored two goals in USA's 7-1 win over Latvia to run his tournament total to 11, surpassing Phil Kessel and Brett Sterling's previous record of nine goals. Caufield has appeared in just four games in the tournament. Kessel and Sterling scored nine in six and eight games, respectively.

"It's a pretty special feeling," Caufield told ESPN after the game. "Any time you get to break a record like that, it's special."

Caufield is tied with Nikita Kucherov and Ilya Kovalchuk for second for the overall single-tournament scoring record. Assuming Team USA advances to the medal games, he will have three more games to challenge Alex Ovechkin's single-tournament record of 14, which has stood since 2002.

"Right now, I'm pretty hot and I'd like to keep it that way," said Caufield. "The wins are more important. For sure, it would be special to get close to [Ovechkin] though."

The Stevens Point, Wisconsin, native has scored no fewer than two goals in each of his four games in the tournament.

In addition to setting the U.S. tournament goal scoring record, Caufield shattered the U.S. National Team Development program's single-season scoring record previously held by Auston Matthews at 55. The winger has 69 goals so far this season and 123 in his career, which is also the high water mark in the NTDP's history.

The 5-foot-7 sniper says he models his game after Chicago Blackhawks winger Alex DeBrincat. Caufield was recently ranked eighth among North American skaters in NHL Central Scouting's final draft rankings. He was 10th on ESPN's midseason Top 50 for the 2019 NHL draft.

Also starring for Team USA at this tournament has been Jack Hughes, the presumptive No. 1 pick in the 2019 NHL draft. Hughes is second on Team USA to Caufield's 13 points with 12 of his own. Having played in last year's tournament, Hughes has 24 career points in U18 World Championship play. Three more will give him the U.S. career scoring record at this tournament, currently held by Kessel who had 26 points over two tournaments. Alex Ovechkin is the tournament's all-time leading scorer with 31 points in 14 games.

Team USA improved to 4-0 in tournament play, finishing atop Group B in preliminary play. They will meet Finland in the quarterfinal Thursday.

The legend of Hockey Hall of Fame goalie Dominik Hasek was only starting to grow in the 1993-94 season.

It was just his first season as a starter, and he led the NHL in save percentage and goals-against average. He won the first of six Vezina Trophies and finished second for the Hart Trophy as league MVP, leading the Buffalo Sabres to 95 points and fourth place in the Northeast Division. Their first-round playoff opponent that spring was the New Jersey Devils. The Devils had a 106-point season behind coach Jacques Lemaire and Hall of Fame goalie Martin Brodeur, who would win the Calder Trophy as the season's top rookie.

The Devils won Game 5 at home to take a 3-2 series lead, and they had a chance to eliminate the Sabres in Buffalo in a game that started on April 27, 1994 -- 25 years ago this Saturday. But it wouldn't end until April 28 at 1:52 a.m. ET, after a four-overtime affair that saw Hasek make 70 saves. Seventy saves and zero goals against. Dave Hannan finally beat Brodeur (who had 49 saves) at 5 minutes, 43 seconds of the final stanza, giving the Sabres a 1-0 victory and forcing a Game 7.

We spoke to Brodeur, Hannan and Devils forward Bobby Holik to recall this marathon performance from Hasek (who declined an interview), and added in other voices from various media from that April.

Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils goalie: It was my first playoffs ever, the first time I ever had a chance to close out a series. It was a pretty good learning experience on how hard it is to win a hockey game in this league.

Dave Hannan, Buffalo Sabres forward: It was at the Aud [Buffalo Memorial Auditorium], which was a smaller rink. The Devils were just a big, big team. Really physical, and so good defensively. But we had great firepower, too: Pat LaFontaine, Dale Hawerchuk, Alexander Mogilny. In those days, I was on the checking line.

Brodeur: Dominik just didn't want to give up that game.

Wayne Presley, Buffalo Sabres forward (April 1994): Dominik had a bad game the other night [four goals on 34 shots in a 5-3 Game 5 loss], but when I came to the rink this morning [before Game 6], I knew he'd have a good game. You could see it in him.

Hannan: The goaltending at both ends ... it was amazing.

Hasek is considered by many to be the best goalie in NHL history. He led the league in save percentage for six consecutive seasons in Buffalo and has the best career save percentage (.922) in NHL history. The acrobatic style of "The Dominator" is a highlight-reel favorite, but he was also known for a quirky personality even by goalie standards.

Bobby Holik, New Jersey Devils center: I played with him for a year in a club in [Czechoslovakia] and played against him for two or three years there. He was a little different. Part of it is being a goalie, and part of it is being something else. But you overlook that different kind of behavior in hockey. I respect his skills. He's the best goalie in the world.

Hannan: Dominik was phenomenal. I had the opportunity to play with a lot of goalies, like Grant Fuhr in Edmonton and Patrick Roy in Colorado. But Dominik was an elite goalie. Set records. The utmost competitor. He never wanted guys to score on him in practice. He would always select somebody to do some breakaways. If you scored, you'd have to start over again, because he wanted to stop you 10 breakaways in a row. It was crazy. The ultimate competitor.

Brodeur: We had a chance to play with each other in All-Star Games and all that. Saw him at the Hall of Fame again. Until his game dropped off a little bit, I didn't have a chance to win any Vezinas. I thought I had better stats than him, better seasons than him, but he just had that aura to him. He was that good. For me, he was a big challenge. Look at the goalies that we had in that era, with Patrick Roy and Ed Belfour and Hasek and others. A lot of really good ones. It became easy to get up for games because I knew the guy on the other end of the ice wasn't going to give up much.

Hannan: He was different. A different way about him. But the more we got to know him, the more he was a character. But when the game came, he was phenomenal. That year, back in the contract days, the defensive players had bonuses for one-goal games and bonuses for shutouts. And we had a lot of both. Myself and Wayne Presley were a penalty-killing tandem, we got a nice regular-season bonus. People were always wondering why we were blocking shots when it was 7-0. It was because he had a phenomenal goals-against average.

Brodeur: You'd probably have to put him on top of the greatest goalies. For the great players, the more you see of them, the more you get them. Like with [Wayne] Gretzky, I got him, but I played more against Mario Lemieux. And I was able to see the effect that he had. Dominik is in the same vein. I played so much against him, so I understand how good he was.

Game 6 between the Devils and Sabres began at 7:45 p.m. ET on April 27, in front of 15,003 at the Aud. It was tied at zero after 60 minutes, and then would go on for what amounted to another entire game plus an additional overtime.

The Sabres were frustrated in the second period after referee Terry Gregson waved off two goals, even though it was for good reasons. First, Jason Dawe was called for goalie interference on an apparent Ken Sutton goal. A little over seven minutes later, a Hawerchuk rebound went off Presley's skate and in, but was ultimately ruled a kick and no goal. Otherwise, the goalies saved everything in sight. And by the time the fourth overtime -- a seventh period of hockey -- hit, the players were exhausted, sweaty and starving.

Hannan: By the start of the third [period of regulation], we were thinking one goal was going to win it. Let's get up one. Both teams had some really good chances in the third, but we didn't score. Both goalies were standing on their heads. So you get through the first overtime, and there are good chances, and the second overtime and then the third ... by then, guys were changing their undergarments after every period because they were soaked.

Holik: This was before the team had lounges with the full kitchens. I think we had pizza. The only choices in Buffalo at the time were chicken wings or pizza. They were both very good. But they decided on the healthier choice ... pizza. (Laughs.)

Brodeur: I always remember the really funny things because we were playing so late. Like people sleeping in the stands. I remember Bernie Nicholls was a healthy scratch that night. In the Aud, the goalies always sat by the trainers, so we were by ourselves and not with the team between periods. So between the first and second overtimes, Bernie walks over to me and says, "You know, kid, you shut them down this period, and I guarantee we're going to win." And then after the second and third, he comes over and says, "Kid, I was just joking, but seriously, if you shut them down this period, we're going to win." And then after the third one, he walks over again and says, "OK, if you do shut them down now, we're going to win." And then he comes back after the game and says, "Well, kid ... you're on your own."

Hannan: Randy Moller, my teammate at the time, comes by and announces to the team: "Will somebody score, please? Because I have a babysitter and it's costing me a lot of money tonight."

Holik: I broke like three sticks, it was such a long game. That was a lot of shooting and slashing and cross-checks and faceoffs. I remember being worried I was going to run out of sticks.

Hannan: Every overtime, it was just will and guts and a desire to win it. It was our building. We wanted to win and send it back to Jersey.

Hasek was a brick wall during the overtimes, making two huge saves on Valeri Zelepukin and another on Holik, who was second on the Devils with eight shots in the game. Hasek's 70 saves were second most in Stanley Cup playoff history at the time, behind only Kelly Hrudey's 73 in 1987, and is now tied for fourth all time. (Belfour had 72 in 2003, and Roberto Luongo stopped 72 of 76 in 2007.) But it remains the most ever in a Stanley Cup playoff shutout.

Holik: I thought it was a matter of time. We had some opportunities. I don't think anyone thought he was too tough to beat. We were too good.

Bob Carpenter, New Jersey Devils forward (April 1994): I thought we outchanced them, but Hasek played the best game I've ever seen a goalie play.

Ken Daneyko, New Jersey Devils defenseman (April 1994): We had like 63,000 chances. But we weren't going to put nothing by Hasek.

Brodeur: I knew that I had to be perfect. You just see him do his thing and you're like, "Oh my God, are we going to catch a break here?" He was standing on his head. It was impressive to see. We had the better quality of the chances, and he kept making save after save. And the game got so slow near the end that I didn't think anyone was going to score. Maybe Bobby Holik. He was the only one skating fast.

Holik: It was awesome. I felt really good. I was young and well-trained.

Mike "Doc" Emrick, announcer (April 1994): You've just got to marvel at how much higher the pedestal has to go for these goaltenders. This wasn't a game of missed opportunities, but of goaltenders and defensemen. ... You'd think the supply of human adrenaline would wear off after the equivalent of more than two games.

Hasek (April 1994): I kept talking to myself to be ready all the time. I felt pretty good physically. Once in the [second overtime], I felt a little tired. But I think the other players were more tired than I was. The shots in overtime weren't so hard.

Hasek made 39 saves in overtime alone, including 14 in the third frame. The game ended when Hannan scored a backhand goal in the fourth overtime, the product of a solid forecheck from the Sabres' checking line and Brodeur having slid to the ice to stop a shot and leaving the net wide-open as a result. Hannan sprinted down the ice and slid on his knees in celebration. Buffalo announcing legend Rick Jeanneret said on the Hannan goal call that the series would now shift back to the Meadowlands, aka "where Jimmy Hoffa is."

Hannan: I didn't score a lot of them in the league, but that was the biggest goal I ever scored. We had the puck deep. I remember Jason Dawe came around, and I was circling back in case there was some commotion. As a center, I was going to be the third guy high. The puck sort of came across, and I thought I could get it on my backhand. My instincts took over. I knew I had to get it on the net as fast and has hard as I could. And boom, it went in.

Brodeur: You could tell how tired everyone was on the goal. When Hannan came over, no one was quick enough to react to him. And then he just shot it into the empty net, you know?

Hannan: It was such a good feeling. I had won Cups before. I knew this kept us in it. And we had the best goalie on the planet.

Rick Jeanneret, Buffalo Sabres announcer: The thing I remembered most about when Dave Hannan scored was that I had to go to the bathroom so bad. My knees were knocking. I was toe-tapping. I was doing everything. I had to get to the washroom. I was the happiest guy when he scored, and then I made a beeline to the washroom.

The 65 minutes, 43 seconds of overtime is third-longest one-goal Stanley Cup playoff game ever, and it ranks as the 11th-longest playoff game overall. The Devils and Sabres were exhausted after the game finally ended, but there was no rest for the weary the next morning. Game 7 was at Brendan Byrne Arena on April 29.

Holik: I was like, "C'mon guys, let's go home. We've gotta play again tomorrow." It wasn't like hanging our heads and being like, "Oh my God, after all we did!"

Brodeur: I think the fact that we were going back home, we felt pretty good about it. But as a franchise, we were pretty fragile. So letting go a game like that was kind of tough. But the leadership that we had, including Jacques Lemaire, who was a brand-new coach, I think really helped us out.

Hannan: I lost a lot of water weight, about 14 pounds. I gained a lot of it back in the next day and a half.

Holik: I remember getting up the next morning and feeling so tired, because the adrenaline wears off. Slow, unfocused, took a while to pull myself together. I've never had a drink in my life, but I imagine that's what a hangover feels like. I had a hockey hangover.

The Devils eliminated the Sabres in Game 7 despite 44 more saves from Hasek. Brodeur needed to make only 17 stops, and Bruce Driver and Claude Lemieux provided the offense. New Jersey would later advance to the conference final by beating the Boston Bruins in six games. But in another Game 7 overtime, the Devils fell to the eventual Stanley Cup champion New York Rangers.

Hannan: We lost 3-1 (actually 2-1) in Game 7, but it was closer than that. It was a good run for us. As you get older, you appreciate the fact that you got to be a part of it. The Buffalo fans were great. And I bet Marty Brodeur and Hasek must have bumped into each other at some point and talked about how great that night was.

Kevin Weekes, NHL analyst and former goalie (NHL.com in November 2015): It was one of the best games I have seen, if not the best. How does it get better than that? Not only the saves, but the quality of saves in the entire game and then with the game being on the line in overtime and the significance of the game.

Brodeur: It's one of the best games I ever played. It became a loss eventually, but I always had fond memories of that game.

Holik: I'd actually like to watch that game again. Well, the condensed version. I don't have half a day.

Vince Masi of ESPN Stats & Information and Sachin Chandan, a researcher with ESPN The Magazine, contributed to this story.

Watford goalkeeper Ben Foster has urged Sir Elton John to cancel a concert in Copenhagen, in order to attend the team's FA Cup final against Manchester City.

The Hornets have reached the FA Cup final for the first time since 1984 and would lift the famous trophy for the first time if they upset favourites City at Wembley Stadium (live on ESPN+, Saturday, May 18, at 12 p.m. ET).

Sir Elton is Watford's honorary life president and was chairman of the club in the 1970s and early 80s, and even has a stand named in his honour at Watford's Vicarage Road, but the singer is set to miss the team's biggest match in years when his world tour reaches Denmark on the same night as the final.

But according to Foster, there is only one place Sir Elton should be on May 18.

"It's no dilemma. He should cancel right now," Foster told reporters following Watford's win over Huddersfield on Saturday.

"I have loads of people I know who have weddings for that day and stuff. It is their own fault -- don't book a wedding in the summer for Cup final day."

Watford reached the final thanks to a thrilling 3-2 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers earlier this month, after goals from Gerard Deulofeu and Troy Deeney led the side to an improbable comeback.

Javi Gracia's team are also eighth in the Premier League but were not expected to have their 2018-19 campaign last any longer than the final day of the Premier League season on May 12.

"I don't think you could have predicted this at the beginning of the season, but as the season wore on it became obvious we had the chance of doing something," Foster added. "So, Elton, you just need to cancel, sorry guys."

Manchester City and England forward Raheem Sterling has said clubs should be given an automatic nine-point deduction and ordered to play three games behind closed doors if their supporters take part in racist behaviour.

Authorities must adopt radical changes to tackle issues, Sterling said, after signing a manifesto that calls for consistent and suitable punishment for racist and discriminatory behaviour.

"I'd call for an automatic nine-point deduction for racist abuse," he wrote in a column for the Times. "It sounds harsh but which fan will risk racist behaviour if it might relegate their team or ruin their title bid?

"The club should have to play three games behind closed doors. That way, they lose revenue as a direct consequence of racist behaviour."

Sterling joined a number of professionals and clubs in endorsing the manifesto which also seeks more black and minority ethnic people in senior positions in football and no sanctions for players walking off the pitch if they encounter racism.

Framed with the guidance of anti-discriminatory bodies Kick It Out and FARE and the Black Collective of Media in Sport, key points of the manifesto also include the need for media and social media to take more responsibility in tackling abuse.

"Up and down the game, across the world, black and Asian players, fans and coaches are subjected to racism. Every day, from park football to the Champions League," Sterling said.

"In my opinion the people who run the game are doing nowhere near enough to solve the problem. And that's not good enough."

Earlier this season, Sterling had accused sections of the British media of fuelling racism with a negative portrayal of young black players.

The 24-year-old encountered racist abuse during England's Euro 2020 qualifier in Montenegro in March, while there have been many other cases in European football in recent months.

Sterling, who is in the running for the Professional Footballers' Association Players' Player of the Year award, said that he did not want young black players to endure what he had.

"I don't know how long it'll take for things to change but we have to start now. I don't want the next generation of black players to have to put up with this evil," he said.